How to create the killer business plan you’ll actually follow this year

Too often annual business plans are so wordy they get stuck in a drawer, or there are too many things that need attending to that the business owner gets overwhelmed and struggles to execute the plan. Or the ideas are so hidden in words that they get lost. The reality is that 12 months is a short period of time and you can’t execute everything that you want to do… so you have to be selective. Set yourself up for success, not for failure.

Every year, as well as putting out fires, solving problems, managing staff and clients, you need to be executing key strategies that will help you get towards your long term vision faster. The following article and exercise will help you create a quick business plan that your whole team will understand and help you execute.

The 2 Page Business Plan aims to uncover the really important objectives that will drive your success in the coming financial year. The idea is to identify the most important goals for the year – the ones that will make the biggest impact towards your long term goals as well as move you forward in the short term.

It includes three key sections:

1. The Core Business Drivers – what are the most important objectives for your business this year? With specific targets added (how to quantify these drivers)

2. The Key Strategies that will turn these objectives to reality

3. The Action/Project Plan for each strategy – the things you have to do, by when and with what resource in order to execute the strategy.

Note:

Your 2 page business plan sits alongside your annual budget. Your budget should outline your profit goal for the year, your planned expenses and the income targets you need to achieve that profit.

Then your 2 Page Business Plan outlines how you are going to achieve this.

EXERCISE

Compete the following:

1. Your Core Business Drivers

What are the most important objectives for this year? The key focus areas that will drive the business forward and ensure you achieve financial objectives?

Limit this to 3 or 5 objectives that will make a real difference.

Example:

Increase Membership

Retain and increase value of existing members

Grow partner network

Decrease dependency on me

2. Specific targets

Underneath each ‘driver’ put a specific target

Example:

Increase Membership

60 new member firms on this year

Retain and increase value of existing members

Increase value of membership based by 40%

Grow partner network

Bring on 4 new suppliers this year

Decrease dependency on me

Hire part time telemarketer and book keeper

3. Key Strategies

Commit to 2 to 5 key strategies that you believe will achieve your core drivers

Example:

Increase membership:

New brand launch PR

Lapsed leads campaign

Events programme

Partner collaboration programme

Content marketing

4. Create a project plan for each of the strategies to make it a reality:

Resources – what needs to happen, who will do it, how much?

Timeframes – when and how long will it take?

Example:

Lapsed Leads campaign:

Write and send new brand email (date)

Prepare scripts and train telemarketer follow up (date)

Get appointments (on-going)

Use new sales presentation to convert

Follow the steps above and you will have a plan you can stick on your wall and see every day, not in your drawer gathering dust. Hope you find this useful.

Happy growing!

PS. For more thoughts on how to make your business more valuable, feel free to download this free booklet, based on my interviews with successful entrepreneurs